In Rowlett, summer camp introduces kids to law enforcement careers

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ROSE BACA/neighborsgo staff photographer

Ryan Lynch, 11, tries on Rowlett S.W.A.T. gear during the first youth police academy. The first of two week-long ÒacademiesÓ was geared toward fifth- through- eight grade students interested in exploring law enforcement careers.

And on day three, as they picked up fingerprints off a window, it was beginning to look a lot like CSI: Rowlett.

This was not your average day camp.

School resource officers from the Rowlett Police Department began their first youth police academy June 24. The first of two weeklong academies was geared toward students in the fifth through eighth grades interested in exploring law enforcement careers — or just learning a bit about a day in the life of a police officer.

“A lot of kids unfortunately only see us when something bad is happening,” said officer Brandon Herring, who organized the summer programs. The program hopes to change that.

“We wanted to deal with kids who want to be there — the kids who put in the effort to do well in school, not kids whose parents are forcing them to be there,” said Herring, who rotates among five elementary schools during the school year.

The program is free, with lunch provided every day.

The department also will offer two two-week camps for high school students, beginning July 15.

Much of the camp was held in a classroom at the Rowlett Community Center, though the group also made visits to the police and courts building. Five school resource officers led many of the sessions, but someone from each of the department’s divisions also explained what they do and led a hands-on activity.

But it soon became clear that the real-life job is a bit more complicated.

Several kids were selected to leave their fingerprints on the classroom window. Smith then removed the prints with magnetic powder for them to examine under a magnifying tool.

Instructors tried to reinforce the school subjects officers use on the job — chemistry to figure out the formula needed to delicately remove a fingerprint; algebra to calculate a car’s speed; geometry to measure the yaw rotation, or skid mark, of a vehicle.

Defensive training, CPR instruction and gang resistance education were all part of the program.

Officer Dianna Bell, the officer at Back, Dorsey, Rowlett and Stephens elementaries, was one of the instructors.

“I tell them, ‘I’m not a policeman, I’m a police lady,’” she said. “I think it inspires a lot of the girls.”

Out of the 21 cadets in the first camp, just four were girls — two of them from families with law enforcement.

Ariauna Lazarin, 9, said she’s inspired by her grandmother, a dispatcher in the Dallas Police Department.

“I’m just really interested in being a cop or a detective or something like that."

She said she has often tagged along with her grandma and watches what she does.

On Wednesday, wearing a pink sweatshirt and pink sunglasses, she took notes diligently in her pink notebook.

But those programs require more manpower than some smaller departments can manage, said officer Brandi Werner, who is involved with the Frisco Junior Police Academy, which Herring modeled the Rowlett program after.

The Rockwall police department piloted an afterschool Student Police Academy for Rockwall ISD about a decade ago, but discontinued it because of lack of interest and participation, said Rockwall Police Sgt. Aaron McGrew.

The department doesn’t currently offer a similar youth program.

Breauna, 9, and Chase Radney, 12, both have career ambitions like their dad, a police officer in Garland.

Since she was about 7, Breauna would tell her dad, “I want to be a police officer just like you.”

Both tried on fatal vision goggles, which blurred their vision, and tried walking heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe, spotted by Officer Charles Hoff, who had just led a two-hour lecture on the traffic patrol unit and DWI.

Afterward, these kids, much too young to drive themselves, were passing around traffic radar guns larger than their heads.

While some instructors, like Hoff, led a slightly modified version of a presentation they might give to an adult audience, others explained their jobs in a more kid-oriented way.

The two members of the S.W.A.T. team who showed off their gear and truck.

“Kind of like you have a classroom, we have our own group of guys,” said Sgt. Oscar Cantu, on the Rowlett S.W.A.T. team. “There’s 10 of us and we work together real closely so we really have to be good at teamwork.”

Then the kids got a chance to try on the heavy batwing-like bullet proof shield and the S.W.A.T. vest.

“It’s kind of like your backpack,” Cantu explained. “Everybody carries their books in different pockets and their pencils — same with us. We put our stuff in all these different pockets.”

After watching S.W.A.T. officers show off their rifles and special cameras, Coy Sauceman, 10, said he’s interested in policing because it just seems fun.

“There’s all these different decisions you need to make all the time,” he said.

But in the end of the afternoon, everybody was ready for their “physical training.”

Climbing out of the S.W.A.T. truck, Ariauna shouted, “Let’s play some dodgeball!”

Rockwall/Rowlett neighborsgo editor Eden Stiffman can be reached at 214-977-8486.

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